Laura Barns is the main antagonist revealed anti-hero in Unfriended.
Biography[]
Laura Barns was born on January 4, 1996, in Fresno, California. She was a nerd among her classmates, and was a victim of cyber-bullying which led to her dying by suicide on April 8, 2013 after an embarrassing sex video was taken of her being drunk, possibly sexually assaulted by a teen boy and eventually passing out, defecating herself. An anonymous person posted that video to YouTube soon after.
Death[]
She was a high school student who died by suicide by shooting herself in the head on April 12, 2013, after an embarrassing video was posted online by her friends.
After unfortunately ending her life, her suicide went viral, with stories across the news and several websites documenting the story, most prominently LiveLeak, which had a video of her suicide. Her Facebook memorial page was also famous, having over 80 likes during the events of the film. Before her suicide, she had a Skype account named billie227, which she femininely named after her twin brother, Billy Barns. It has also been implied (but never confirmed) that Laura was sexually harassed and molested by her uncle.
Although she has a seemingly nice and charming personality, Laura is seen taunting Val at a party and Ken later states that she was a bully who deserved what she got, a comment others such as Mitch agreed with. Laura also posted a hate-video where she holds up messages to her bullies, insulting them. As a demon she is completely morbid and merciless; leading to her killing off her former friends in extremely violent and gruesome ways, often with slow, excruciatingly painful results.
Before the events of Unfriended, it is known she was best friends with Blaire Lily since childhood.
Vengeance[]
On April 8, 2014, exactly one year after she commits suicide, she logs onto her Skype and Facebook as a demon and begins tormenting her former friends, forcing Blaire, Mitch, Ken, Adam and Jess into a Skype chat (with Blaire inviting Val into the chat later on). Her friends at first assume her presence in the Skype chat to be nothing more than a glitch, until, in Val's words, "the glitch just typed", revealing her presence.
At first, the attacks are fairly mild; they include sending Skype/Facebook messages on somebody's behalf, posting pictures of Val being drunk and smoking out of a bong, and disabling the "Forward" option in an e-mail. The attacks progressively get worse, and eventually she kills her first target, Val. After Val calls 911, Laura sends a threat and a screen grab that implicates Val in Laura's suicide, she forces her to drink bleach. Val's mirror is also broken, implying Laura may also have forced her to cut herself with broken pieces of the mirror; Val's death is concluded as a suicide by the police.
Laura tells the others that she wishes to play a game, while making it clear that those who refuse to obey her dies. Shortly after, Ken gets everyone to mute their microphones (which Laura is able to turn back on moments later) and takes advantage of the situation by sending a Trojan Anti-Virus program to "uninstall Laura". Laura gave Ken 60-second countdown to stop doing that. Finally, after everyone deletes their files, she is banished from the group chat exactly as the timer runs out. However, she comes back after Adam attempts to call 911 to help Val, before killing Ken by forcing him to destroy his arm and neck with his own blender. It is likely because of Ken's computer skills posing a threat to her scheme that she targeted him ahead of the others, it is unknown if she had personal grudge against him.
She then slowly kills off everyone in the group chat one by one, taunting and tormenting them, while also destroying their friendships beforehand with a game of Never Have I Ever, with the added difference that the losers die instead of taking a drink, while in reality only killing those who did not answer truthfully (thus refusing to obey her).
At the end of the film, with Blaire being the only one left, it is revealed that Blaire was the one that filmed the video that caused Laira to commit suicide, she reveals this new information on her Facebook account, which was immediately flooded with hate comments. Laura's final words in the film were that she wishes she could forgive Blaire for what she did and she then logs off of Skype. Blaire sits in front of her laptop, horrified by what has happened, until her bedroom door suddenly creaks open, after which her laptop is violently closed before she is then attacked, and presumably killed by a demonic-looking Laura.
Killed Victims[]
- Herself - Shot in the face.
- Val Rommel - Forced her to drink bleach by Laura.
- Ken Smith - Forced him to blend his right hand and his throat w/ blender by laura.
- Adam Sewell - Forced him to shoot himself in the head by Laura.
- Jess Felton - Forced her to choke on a hot curling iron into her mouth by Laura.
- Mitch Roussel - Forced him to face slam onto a knife and through the eye w/ his hunting knife by Laura.
- Blaire Lily - Killed off-screen by Laura, her ghost is shown lunging at Blaire before it cuts to black with her screaming
Trivia[]
- Her death is very similar to the suicide of Audrie Pott:
- Both were humiliated across the globe because of photos and a video that had spread across social media showing them in an intoxicated state.
- Both were harassed and mocked by her best friends.
- Both events and suicides happened in California.
- Both were very popular at their respective schools.
- All of Laura's kills involve using the main characters personal attachments as a form of irony:
- Val was revealed to be a stoner; she is killed by being forced to drink bleach.
- Ken constantly brags about his new blender to his friends. Later, both his right arm and throat were both forcefully shoved into the blender.
- Adam was an alcoholic and loved guns. He carried his father's revolver and would carelessly fling it around. He is later forced to shoot himself in the head with it. Interestingly enough, Laura killed herself in the same way (Although she chose to commit suicide, contrary to Adam).
- Jess was obsessed with her hair and its appearance. She is killed by choking on a scalding hot curling iron.
- Mitch liked to use his hunting knife to roleplay as he and Blaire have cyber sex. Later, he is forced to shove the knife deep into his eye.
- Blaire was obsessed with keeping her good-girl image and hiding her dark secrets. Her good-girl image is destroyed and her dark secrets are revealed to the public forever.
- It is implied that Laura went to Hell after she died. She possesses several demon-like abilities, and also says things like "You wouldn't like it here, Val" after Val threatens to find her and beat her up. Laura was also a Jewish Catholic, and the Jewish Catholic Church has the belief that those who commit suicide are sent to Hell.
- Her zodiac sign is Capricorn.
- Even though she is considered the main antagonist of the film, she was most likely the anti-hero due to her killing all the antagonists (being her "friends").